Content and news by Rob Williams

Blizzard Entertainment today announced that the release date for World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, the first expansion for World of Warcraft, is delayed until January 2007. By adding a few extra weeks to the development cycle beyond its original target date, Blizzard will be able to extend the closed beta test and further refine the new content that will ship with the game.

Yes, this IS a slow news day, so what you gonna do? For you fifty billion WoW players, you will have to wait until the new year for the expansion pack!

The RV560 Radeon X1650XT is expected to launch next week with a core clock 575 MHz unlike the previously reported 450 MHz. It appears ATI is getting better yields than previously expected, although the Radeon X1650XT was originally expected for an end of August or beginning of September launch.

Given the specs, this card could be serious competition to the 7600GT. If you considered picking up the X1950 Pro that we recently took a look at, you may want to wait for X1650XT reviews to see if it fits better into your budget. Apparently the cards are going to hover around the $150US mark… not shabby at all.

Johansen, now 22 and widely known as “DVD Jon” for his exploits, has also figured out how Apple’s iPod-iTunes system works. And he’s using that knowledge to start a business that is going to drive Steve Jobs crazy.

Jon Johansen is one of those people you just have to admire… he uses his smarts to make our lives easier, without care of what the large companies think. This article focuses on his life to a degree, but also his recent task of hacking FairPlay, Apples iTune related protections.

Jack Thompson has himself come under fire from lawyers representing publisher Take-Two Interactive, who have called for Thompson to be held in contempt of court. While it remains unclear as to the exact nature of this request, it most likely stems from comments following Thompson’s most recent failed attempt to prevent the recently released controversial title Bully from being sold in Florida.

This was bound to happen eventually, so it is not much of a surprise. If worse came to worse, Jack could face time in prison but he is hardly worried. In fact, he considers this “hardball”, so things may just get interesting.

San Jose, California – October 23, 2006 — Super Talent Technology, a leading manufacturer of memory modules and flash products, today announced a 16GB solid state disk (SSD) that is fully compatible with industry standard 1.8” notebook IDE drives.

You can read the full press release here.

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 23, 2006 – Intel Corporation today announced the formation of the Intel Software Partner Program, a membership-based program for independent software vendors (ISVs). The program is open to any software company developing commercial products or services for Intel technologies, such as Intel Core 2 Duo, Intel Xeon and Intel Itanium processors. The Intel Software Partner Program offers a portfolio of planning, technical, marketing and sales resources designed to facilitate a member’s ability to grow business, reach new customers and stay on top of the latest software development, marketing and competitive trends.

You can read the full press release here.

SAN FRANCISCO—OCT. 23, 2006—At Oracle OpenWorld today, AMD (NYSE: AMD) Chairman and CEO Hector Ruiz delivered the opening day keynote address, discussing how the IT industry has entered a new era of choice, and the impacts that will result from this industry phenomenon.

You can read the full press release here.

Cases & Enclosures
• Gigabyte Aurora – Guru3D

Cooling
• CoolIT Freezone CPU Cooler – 3D Gameman
• Monsoon II Active TEC CPU Cooling – Legit Reviews
• Revoltec VGA Graphic Freezer Pro – Bjorn3D
• Thermaltake Big Typhoon VX CPU Cooler – Futurelooks
• Zalman CNPS 9500 AM2 CPU Cooler – Madbox PC (Spanish)
• Zalman Reserator 2 – TweakNews

Memory & Storage
• Crucial Ballistix 1GB Kit DDR2-800 – OC Inside
• Elife Colorful Card USB Drive – Think Computers
• Lots of Hi-Speed USB Pen Drives Tested – TweakTown
• Seagate Barracuda 750GB ES – Boot Daily

Motherboards & Processors
• Abit AW9D Max – Pro-Clockers
• Albatron KI51PV-754 Mini-ITX – Tech Spot
• Biostar TForce P965 Deluxe – Hard|OCP
• MSI K9A Platinum AM2 – Hexus
• MSI mPC 945 Barebone SFF – Viper Lair
• nForce 590 SLI Motherboard Round-Up: Gigabyte, Asus, MSI – HotHardware
• Sapphire Pure Crossfire AM2 – Neoseeker

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Bluegears b-Enspirer PCI Sound Card – DragonSteelMods
• Choosing a Portable MP3 Player: Part 1 – OC Modshop
• Corsair Hx 620W Power Supply – Red & Blackness

Displays & Video Cards
• ASUS EN7950GT – Gamepyre
• ATI Radeon X1650PRO – TweakTown
• Powercolor X1650 Pro – techPowerUp!
• Samsung SyncMaster 225BW – ModTheBox
• Survey Shows Radeon 9×00 Still On Top – NGOHQ

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Orange SPV M600 – BIOS Magazine
• Palm Treo 700p – OCIA
• Sumo Omni – XYZ Computing
• “Win a Swiftech H20-220 Apex Ultra kit with SpecialTech” – Overclock 3D

Initial responses ranged from warm to openly dismissive. “Lame” was the final word of a reaction to the player on Slashdot. Others griped that comparably priced players from rivals such as Creative Technology and Archos stored four times as much music or pointed to devices that stored the same amount for far less.

If you, like me, still don’t understand exactly what makes the iPod so great, then you are in the minority. It’s been an incredible five years to say the least, and looking back to the original model is almost laughable. You can see a small timeline here which points out all of the milestones.

NZXT is back with a sophisticated new case that proves to be one of the most “solid” we’ve ever taken a look at. It also includes a few innovations not seen in other cases. The primary downside? Small interior. Read on to see all of what this case has to offer.

ATI has been working closely with the foundry, according to Chou, adding that the company is looking to adopt the 45nm node by 2008. ATI began 80nm production at TSMC at the end of 2005 and started production of its 65nm-made chips from the middle of this year.

It looks like the AMD/ATI merge is already starting to show some serious potential. Considering we are currently at 90nm, 45nm is an incredible jump given the timeframe. What this means to the consumer though, is that the card should require less power, which in turn leads to less heat and better performance.

Firefox 2.0, the foremost rival to Microsoft Corp.’s Internet Explorer browser, is set for release Tuesday afternoon, said its producer, the not-for-profit Mozilla Corp. The free 5-megabyte browser, available in 39 languages for Windows, Mac and Linux computers, will be downloadable from getfirefox.com, the Mountain View, Calif., company said.

I’ve been using the Firefox 2.0 release candidate since last week, and am so far impressed. I’ve found the browser to be more stable, so it’s definitely worth checking out. Or wait until Tuesday when the final release will take place!

There is no doubt that 1080p is the holy grail of high definition, which is exactly why Sony has pursued that benchmark with such enthusiasm. But exactly how hard is 1080p to render for video game consoles?

Here is a very simple article that explains that bigger is not always better. 1080p may sound better than 720p, but optimizations could easily be made to 720p to make it’s appearence better than what 1080p can provide at the same performance level.

MUCH LESS Linux viruses exist when one compares the numbers to ones on the ubiquitous Windows, but with compatibility libraries like WINE to run windows software on Linux, and and “windows-on-Linux” virtualisation products like Win4Lin an antivirus on Linux is essential.

I was impressed by a Linux review on the Inq, so I have to link to it simply for that. In the end, do you really need an anti-virus for Linux? It’s up to you really, but AVG looks pretty useful.

An independent website has been told to stop putting footage of FA Premiership goals on the video website YouTube. NetResult – a firm monitoring the internet on behalf of the Premier League – emailed a warning to the website, 101greatgoals.blogspot.com.

I’m a big fan of the Premier League, so finally something like this actually effects me. I think it’s ridiculous of course, that the firm would be worried about broadcast of low quality video. I am sure that will stifle future DVD sales.

Cases & Enclosures
• Coolermaster Xcraft – Technic3D
• Thermaltake Aguila – Hexus

Cooling
• Apack Zerotherm GX710 Copper Videocard VGA Cooler – TweakNews
• Cooler Master Hyper TX Socket 775 CPU Cooler – Big Bruin
• KuFormula VF1 Plus VGA Cooler – Bjorn3D
• Vantec Iceberq6 VGA Cooler – Pro-Clockers

Memory & Storage
• Highpoint 1740 SATA-II Controller – TweakTown

Motherboards & Processors
• ECS P965T-A Rev1.0B – Futurelooks
• Most efficient L2 cache usage: Intel’s shared or AMD’s dedicated? – Digit-Life
• Nvidia’s nForce 590 SLI chipset for Intel processors – Tech Report

Peripherals & Power Supplies
• Enermax Galaxy 850W PSU – Technic3D
• Logitech G11 Gaming Keyboard – Modders-Inc
• Saitek GM3200 Laser Mouse – Cooling-Station (German)
• Sunbeam Case Chassis Feet – Modders-Inc

Displays & Video Cards
• EVGA e-GeForce 7600GTS – Motherboards.org
• Inno3D GeForce 7900GS SLI – PC Modding Malaysia
• Intel GMA 3000 Q965 Graphics Performance – Phoronix
• NaturalPoint TrackIR 4:PRO – techFEAR
• Pixelview PlayTV 550 Hybrid USB-Stick – TweakPC (German)
• X-Micro X-VDO MP4 F610 Multimedia Player – Think Computers

Complete Systems, Competitions & Etcetera
• Deskmodding Guide – Madbox PC(Spanish)
• “Do NOT do this with LN2” – Madbox PC (Spanish)
• Free Give Away At Motherboards.Org – Motherboards.org
• Guide to BIOS Functions and Firmware Flashing – TechNibble
• Interview with PowerColor’s Raymen Wu – NGOHQ
• Motorola KRZR K1m – Digital Trends
• Overclockers Online Birthday Contest Update – Overclockers Online
• Rivatuner Version 2.0 Release Candidate 16.1 – Guru3D
• The Top 5 Silent PC Upgrades – Hardcoreware
• The Ultimate Geek Comforter – The Tech Zone

It takes a special kind of failure to make it into this list. A game has to be more than boring or poorly executed. To become one of the 20 Worst, it starts as a bad idea and ends by actually lowering the quality of life of people who haven’t played it.

Chances are good that there will be a few games listed here that you’ve never heard of. I can’t believe “Extreme Sports with Berenstein Bears” and “Bible Adventures” made the list!

“It’s not a matter of which platform the virus originated [on]. The fact that it’s found on the portable player means that there’s an issue with how the quality checks, specifically the content check, was done,” Poon wrote in a blog entry.

I am not an Apple hater, in fact I’d love to pick up a powerbook in the future. But, someone really needs to write some smokin’ Mac specific virus to get them off their high horses.

XbitLabs reports AGEIA may have dual-PPU plans for its PhysX hardware physics accelerator card. The latest drivers reveal a revised hardware scene manager that allows multiple PhysX cards to operate in tandem to deliver greater physics acceleration capabilities.

Yes, because after taking a look at the undeniable amount of success the cards have had already, I could easily see why someone would want a second one.

The Motion Picture Association of America has partnered with the Los Angeles Area Boy Scouts to create a new patch for Boy Scouts – a “Respect Copyrights” activities patch. The movie industry helped develop the patch so that scouts can be educated on how movies are made and why films are valuable.

I will try my best to refrain from giving my opinion on just how freaking ridiculous this really is. I have to wonder what’s next though. Where’s the “Abstinence”, “Internet Explorer Avoiderer” and “Ubuntu User” badges??